‘Miscellany’ Archives
“Being alive and Native is an act of resistance, resilience and activism,” says Marcie Rendon
By DWIGHT HOBBES Marcie Rendon, writer and grassroots firebrand, has made her way into the mainstream with the hit novels, “Murder on the Red River” and “Girl Gone Missing” (Cinco Puntos Press), racking up love-letter reviews from Publisher”™s Weekly, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Kirkus Review and more like it”™s lunch. Marcie Rendon, writer, grassroots firebrand. Photo: Sigwan Rendon “What”™s an Indian Woman to Do When White Girls Act More Indian Than Indian Women Do?” circa mid-90s to the best of her recollection, was the highlight of an afternoon with the likes of Janice Command and Ardie Mendoza reading prose-poetry from a Native perspective. It”™s a scathing send-up of sexually slumming, paleface predators hunting Native men while Native women stew in seething consternation. This gathering eventually evolved into the theatre company/performance troupe and Raving Natives Productions with Rendon [...]
The Fateful Day in Duluth: June 15, 1920
BY HOWARD McQUITTER II On June 15th, 1920, three young African American boys””Elias Clayton, 19 years old; Elmer Jackson, 19 years old; Isaac McGhie, 20 years old””working for the John Robinson Circus were lynched by a white mob. Postcard of the 1920 Duluth lynching: Two of the victims are still hanging while the third is laid on the ground. Photo: Wikipedia False accusations of rape of a white woman of nineteen years old by six African American men spread throughout Duluth. Although a physician found no physical evidence of rape, it didn”™t matter because the white mob (estimated between 10 and 15 thousand) was determined to lynch the three boys already in jail. The mob was able to break into and nab Clayton, Jackson, and McGhie and the mob tried to break into a more fortified part of the jail where more Black men were jailed, but were not successful. While the mob was in a frenzy, other African Americans who unfortunately may have been in the way [...]
Movie Corner: “Lord of the Flies” (1990)
By HOWARD McQUITTER II Did you ever wonder what you would do if you had to fend for yourself after a holocaust and the survivors around you, whether you know them or not, are strangers? Similar to that question is what”™s going on today with the pandemic coronavirus where “normal” human encounters are truncated as if in clouds of uncertainty---social distancing, wearing masks, sometimes wearing gloves, confining ourselves to home or apartment, maybe daily watching the dreary stories of Covid cases and deaths on CNN. In these times where coronavirus faces you in its unseen and mysterious form wondering if that sneeze near you will infect you or the doctor or nurse hands on patients with coronavirus may turn up postive. In “Lord of the Flies,” schoolboys escape a place crash in the ocean making it to an island. Ralph (Balthazar Getty) quickly goes into survivor mode by giving each boy an assignment. Shortly after each boy is assigned a duty, a [...]
